Embodiments of the subject matter disclosed herein generally relate to methods and devices and, more particularly, to mechanisms and techniques for designing return channel vanes for increasing centrifugal compressor efficiency or reducing centrifugal compressor size and cost without affecting the performance of the centrifugal compressor.
Centrifugal compressors are utilized extensively in many industries today across a wide variety of applications. A consistent request, from users of centrifugal compressors to the manufacturers of centrifugal compressors, is to produce a machine with smaller size and lower cost having the same performance characteristics of the existing generation of centrifugal compressor. Implicit in this request is the necessity of improving the efficiency of a gal compressor such that reducing the size of the centrifugal compressor results in a lower cost machine without reducing the performance of the machine.
Centrifugal compressors generally have multiple stages and return channels, with fixed vanes, for redirecting the compressed gas from the exit location of one stage to the entry location of the next stage and for removing the tangential component of the flow. The design of the vanes associated with the return channels is important for optimizing the performance of the centrifugal compressor.
Illustrated in prior art FIG. 1 is a return channel 102, including a return channel vane 104 and a rotor vane 106. It should be noted that the return channel vane 104 does not extend to the bend apex 108 of the return channel 102.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide designs and methods that increase the performance of a given centrifugal compressor or reduce the size and cost of a centrifugal compressor without reducing the capacity of the centrifugal compressor.